Not Like Other Girls
by emmylouuwho
Summary: Scenes from Firefly from River's point of view.
1. Waking & Sleeping

**Author's Note:** _Italics _are River's direct thoughts, and _**bold italics**_ are thoughts of other characters that she Reads.

I do not own Firefly obviously, since I am not Joss Whedon.

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><p>"Well, let's see what a man like you would kill for."<p>

"No don't!" The doctor struggled in Jayne's iron grip.

He kicked the lid off the crate, and steam rose from the open container to reveal a girl in cryo. Mal stared openmouthed.

"Hunh."

* * *

><p>She was in a box. The men who knew Simon put her in a box, and she went to sleep. Cryopresevration. It silenced the voices. Now they began to seep back into her brain, slowly getting louder. She didn't know if they were thoughts or words.<p>

"The shock of what? Waking up? Finding out she's been sold to some border world baron? Or I'm sorry. Was this one for you? Is it true love? Because you do seem a little-"

Her eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright with a shriek, looking around. So many voices. She tried to block them out, crawl away from them, hide.

"River?" Someone knelt before her; his thoughts were kind, worried. "Hey, it's OK. It's OK. I'm here." _Simon_.

"Simon?" She looked into his eyes. It _was_ Simon. The same blue eyes, the same nose, the same brown hair. Like their father.

_**Post traumatic amnesia? Or is it the effect of their experiments?**_

The Alliance. Needles. Surgical gloves. Old uniformed men, laughing at the death they caused from millions of miles away._'Scary monsters.'_

"Simon, they talked to me. They want me, they want me to talk-"

"They're gone. They're gone! We're safe now. We're safe. I'm here."

Confusion came from all around them.

"What the hell is this?"

"This is my sister."

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><p>Simon filled a syringe with lorazepam. River stuck her tongue out in disgust. That was his solution to everything. She didn't want to sleep anymore. He put the needle in her arm, and she looked away. She laid back on the cot, waiting for oblivion to take her.<p>

_Lorazepam, clonazepam, diazepam, flunitrazepam, nitra..._

* * *

><p>Red anger swept down the hall, enveloped the man who represented his god. The violence radiated into the infirmary, waking her.<p>

"Simon?" She looked around, but he wasn't there. The only other person was the girl mechanic.

_Kaylee_. The girl glowed with joy. Sunshine and strawberries. But the anger overshadowed her, blocked out all other thought.

"What's wrong, sweetie?"

River got up, looking around uncertainly. The source of the anger grasped her from behind, and she gasped at the force of that hatred, so close, directed at her now.

"Look at you. All woke up." The lawman focused his anger and his gun on shiny Kaylee. "Oh, I'm sorry about what happened before. But make so much as a sound and the next one goes through your throat."

Then he was pulling her toward the cargo bay.


	2. This isn't Home

They crowded in on her, anxious to know the results of their work. Men in masks. They hooked her up. Electrodes, needles. Faceless eyes that looked on eagerly. The needles came nearer and nearer...

She woke with a shriek, leaping off the bed to crouch in a corner.

"River? River, it's OK." He kept saying that. It wasn't true. "It's me. Do you know who I am?"

She gave him a withering look. "Simon." _Recognition is not the issue._

"Were you dreaming? Did you dream about the Academy?"

"It's not relevant."

She looked around. They were in an infirmary, a crude one at that. That's what Simon thought of it anyway.

"... the more I know, the faster you'll get better."

"This isn't home."

"No. No, we can't go home."

Father was angry. He blamed Simon for making him come to get him. _**'I won't come for you.'**_ She wouldn't see him again.

"If we go home, they'll just send you back to the Academy. This is safer now."

He didn't think it was safe. The Captain didn't like him. Neither did the big hairy man. Jayne.

"We're on a ship." His tone rose, signaling an attempt at optimism. And a change of subject.

"Mid bulk transport. Standard radion accelerator core. Class code 03-K64. Firefly."

The Captain walked in. He glowed with excess testosterone, happy after a fight. A fight with the Alliance.

"Well, that's something. I can't even remember all that."

Simon _gege_ analyzed the wound. "Need a weave on that?"

"It's nothin'."

"I expect that someone's face feels differently."

"Yeah. They tell ya, never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."

"Hm. I suppose so." Simon was such a prude. He didn't approve of violence. Or the Captain. Malcolm Reynolds. Mal. The sergeant who blamed his god for losing the war. Independents. Browncoats. _**'You know, your coat is kind of a brownish color.'**_

"Just an honest brawl between folk. Ain't none of us want the Alliance on us, doctor. That's why you're here."

"I thought I was here because you needed a medic."

"Well, not today." Captain Mal left.

"Mal." She turned to look at her confused brother. "'Bad.' In the Latin."


End file.
